Turquoise by Greg Malouf

Author:Greg Malouf
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
ISBN: 9781742731575
Publisher: Hardie Grant Books
Published: 2011-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

SERVES 4

Meat

In Turkish cooking, as is generally the case in the Middle East, meat means lamb. Thousands of years ago, tribes of nomadic Turks roamed the Central Asian steppes on horseback, surviving by hunting game animals and birds and supplementing their sparse diet with wild vegetation and berries. Eventually they learnt how to herd flocks of sheep to mountain pastures, so sheep became one of the first animals to be domesticated, bred for their woolly coats, milk and tallow fat as well as their meat.

This meat-oriented diet persisted as the nomadic Turks migrated out of the steppes and into Anatolia. Every part of the animal was eaten, from the head to the tail, and all the organs in between! A taste for offal endures to this day: kokoreç (grilled intestines) are a favourite street snack; brains, liver and kidneys all make popular mezze dishes; and tripe soup (ikembe çorbasi) has famous restorative properties.

The solid white fat from the over-sized sheep’s tail was traditionally used as a cooking fat called kuyrukyai. Even today kuyrukyai is still the preferred cooking fat in many rural parts of Turkey, although olive oil is more common along the Aegean and Mediterranean coastlines.

Many frequently used methods of cooking meat can be traced back to the nomadic Turks and, subsequently, the Ottoman armies. Being constantly on the move, there would be little time in the evenings to set up camp and gather firewood for cooking, so meat was generally cut into very small pieces, threaded onto makeshift skewers and cooked over a quickly lit, fierce-burning fire. If camp was struck for several days, they would have time for slow-cooking in clay pots or cauldrons; victories were celebrated by roasting whole lamb in a deep pit known as a tandir.

Köfte kebabs, made from minced meat, evolved as an economic way of pounding or grinding somewhat tougher cuts of meat into a smooth palatable paste, flavoured with herbs and spices. The paste was shaped into long sausages around skewers for grilling over hot coals, or formed into meatballs for frying. When wood was scarce or there was danger afoot, köfte would be eaten raw – çi köfte.

In times of abundance, hunks of meat were hung on the nomads’ saddles to be tenderised by the rhythmic pounding of the horses’ flanks in motion. The meat was then rubbed with spices and hung in the dry air to cure. It is thought that pastirma – a sort of Turkish pastrami – originated in this way.

Turkish lamb has a superb flavour. It is generally slaughtered young, and Turks will tell you that its flavour and texture is acquired from the wildflowers and herbs in the pastures where the lambs graze.

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